Thank you, headache.

This piece is going under rights for Images, the literary magazine on my campus. It'll b e back up when I get rights back! YAY! Happy dance!

A snippet from a line

“You got an ID, son?” the barkeep asked. His hand, clutched around the tap, hesitated.

An ID? Jacob laughed. What good was an ID? What on earth would his ID say? ‘Born in 1467, Provisional until age 18 in 1485, Age 21 in 1488’? The same picture, a mirror image of the real self, forever on his ID, no matter what the year. And it wouldn’t even bother to designate a hospital should his organs be needed in case of death.

Jacob shook his head. He was far older than 21, but he didn’t want to cause an argument. He didn’t have the energy. “Not with me.”

The barkeep shook his head in returned and dropped his hand, picking up a rag again and polishing some glasses. “Sorry. No drinks without a card.”

Jacob shrugged. “Juice, then. Orange juice.” The barkeep nodded and got him the drink. In this age of technology, when everyone knew who you were with a single click of the electronic mouse, when you could be tracked in a heartbeat, it was getting harder and harder to remain out of anyone’s radar. Jacob moved out of town every decade or so to keep from arousing suspicion. He didn’t have a job, he didn’t go to college. A modern-day rover, a vagabond of sorts, for what good was money when you lived forever? After the first few hundred years material possessions had begun to lose their luster. The ancient man drank the orange juice, but today it gave him no satisfaction. What he wanted, what he had wanted for a long time, was companionship. Someone who wasn't going to keel over and die after a couple of decades. Or after a car accident. Ageless fingers ran over a line on his forehead. Every time...every time he fell into getting to know someone. Well, what did he expect? As far as he knew he was the only one on earth of his kind. Though he had searched. Boy, had he searched. But after a while, one begins to turn to other things.

But what else was there to turn to?J

acob finally sat at the bar and rested a head in his hand. Nothing to be done. No more loving, he decided fiercely. No more companionship.

"Rough day, huh?" Jacob looked up. A few seats down. A pretty girl with a drink in hand, eyeing him over the rim with deep, deep wells of brown eyes, framed in serious-looking glasses.

Jacob's mouth twitched in a smile. "Rough couple hundred years, honey," he replied. She laughed.

I am an idiot, thought Jacob as he moved to the seat next to hers.